Folic Acid Before Pregnancy is Beneficial for Delivery Health

Folic Acid Before Pregnancy is Beneficial for Delivery Health

By Greg Arnold, DC, CSCS, May 26, 2009, abstracted from “Preconceptional Folate Supplementation and the Risk of Spontaneous Preterm Birth: A Cohort Study” in the 2009 issue of the Public Library of Science

Pre-term birth puts both the health of the baby and the mother at risk. In the newborn, pre-term birth increases the risk of health complications as well as lasting disabilities such as mental retardation, cerebral palsy, lung and gastrointestinal problems, vision and hearing loss, and even death (1). For the mother, pre-term birth increases the risk of cardiovascular disease later in life. Specifically, women who have delivered pregnancies before 37 weeks of pregnancy have a 300% increased risk of cardiovascular death (2).

More than a half million infants were born pre-term in 2004, the highest number reported since comparable national data on gestational age have been available (1981) (3). While some ways to help maintain pregnancy health have been found, including maintaining healthy cholesterol levels (4) and increasing omega-3 fat intake (5), a new study (6) has found that taking folic acid before pregnancy may help with a healthy pregnancy.

In the study, researchers conducted interviews with more than 34,000 women during the first three months of their pregnancy and asked them whether or not they had taken folic acid supplements before conception. They then followed the mothers through pregnancy and found that. compared to those who had not taken any folic acid supplements, those supplementing for more than a year had a 70% reduced risk of pre-term birth between 20 and 28 weeks of pregnancy and a 50% reduced risk of preterm birth between 28 and 32 weeks. There was no reduced risk beyond 32 weeks with supplementation.

For the researchers, folic acid supplementation before pregnancy “is associated with a 50%–70% reduction in the incidence of early spontaneous preterm birth.” Unfortunately, the researchers did not state what the average folic acid supplement dose was during the year before conception, but the current recommendation is 600 micrograms per day during pregnancy